During President George W. Bush’s administration, his office managed to amass over 200 million emails throughout its eight year term. All of these emails needed to be stored for security reasons and as historical records.

However, the access and restrictions placed on these emails were purely a policy issue. For any government, deciding who has access to important information is down to those who set email guidelines i.e. judges, lawyers and other Presidents. No one wants to be misquoted or have something taken out of context.

In order to make any retrieval issue as simple as possible, a technical solution is best. eDiscovery processes can be streamlined and work more efficiently to find a specific message among millions of emails. With a solid email policy in place, security can be assured and important communications are unlikely to be leaked.

Email archiving works best when incorporated with an email policy. Then, there is no confusion about which emails are stored securely and protocols can be put in place to mitigate any risks to lost data.